Washington ? Authorities have captured a senior al-Qaida operative in Southeast Asia who had been assigned to recruit new pilots to conduct Sept. 11-style suicide hijackings in the United States, the White House said Thursday.

Hambali, an Indonesian whose real name is Riduan Isamuddin, was detained this week during a joint operation run by the Central Intelligence Agency and a foreign government in Southeast Asia. American officials declined to identify that government, although foreign newspapers reported Hambali was taken in Thailand.

He was the operational head of Jemaah Islamiyah, a regional terrorist network in Southeast Asia that is affiliated with al-Qaida. He has been taken to an undisclosed location overseas for interrogation by American officials.

A top al-Qaida detainee first told of Hambali’s assignment to find more suicide hijackers not long after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, a senior Bush administration official said. Other sources confirmed his efforts. Hambali also received money earlier this year from an al-Qaida operative in Pakistan, the official said.

A U.S. counterterrorism official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said it was unclear how successful Hambali’s recruiting drive was but that he would be interrogated on the matter.

Hambali, 39, is suspected of ties to several recent attacks, including the Aug. 5 bombing of the J.W. Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia, that killed 12 people and injured 150.